The NSW Liberal Party has announced it will challenge the incredibly tight vote result that took the Sydney seat of Bradfield out of its grasp for the first time.
Kapterian had initially been declared the winner by eight votes, which would have been one of the tightest races in Australian political history, before a full recount made Boele the first non-Liberal MP to represent the northern Sydney seat in its 75-year history.
Kapterian this evening said the party would “go to the umpire” after careful consideration of the different counts.
“Over 118,000 ballots were cast by the people of Bradfield. The original count resulted in an 8 vote lead my way, while the second count resulted in a 26 vote lead for Ms Boele,” she said, in a statement posted to social media.
“Today’s decision is taken to ensure the intentions of the voters of Bradfield are accurately reflected in the final count.”
Kapterian said there was “no question regarding the integrity of our electoral system” and the process had “only served to reaffirm my faith in Australia’s democratic institutions”.
She said the challenge, expected to be presented to the Court of Disputed Returns tomorrow, would “provide collective confidence that the final result reflects the true wishes of the voters in Bradfield and remove any remaining doubt”.
“In this instance a final arbiter does exactly what the AEC officials were doing throughout the count: they look at a ballot paper to determine matters like whether a number is legible, or whether a 5 is an 8 etc.
“We are requesting a targeted final examination of a small number of ‘line ball’ ballots that were reserved and considered by the Australian Electoral Officer during the counts.”
Boele was yet to comment tonight.
